Andromeda Herself
by Creeping Just the Same
Summary: Tonight is Andromeda's last night on Earth.


Disclaimer: All rights to JKR.

Andromeda, Herself

Tonight is her last night on Earth.

Raging winds, burning starlight, and tempests—frightful, dramatic, divine storms—are expected, but fail to put in an appearance. It rains only a very little—a dispassionate summer drizzle. The tame quarter moon stays tucked behind flat grey clouds most of the night. It's quiet on the street—not supernaturally quiet, mind you: just sort of normal and calm and dull.

It's not a very romantic night for an escape, but Andromeda's never been very romantic.

Sure, on paper, she might sound it, running away from her family, her name, and her fortune; rejecting her birthright of respectability and—soon, she fears—safety. She's stealing away in the middle of the night, once they've all gone to sleep, to meet her love—a wonderful, handsome, poor muggleborn. And they're to run away and fashion some manner of life together, built up on the remains of the late, great Andromeda Black.

There's a reason these stories always end badly, practical Andromeda muses during tea that afternoon. She sits beside her mother, who's speaking at her and graciously expecting no response, while Andromeda tries to reason with herself. She's not exactly trying to talk herself out of running away, but she wants to be absolutely _sure_, and that means facing the facts.

If she leaves with Ted Tonks tonight, she will irrevocably renounce the life she's known for the last two decades—the _only_ life she's _ever_ known. She won't see her mother anymore, or her father, or her sisters or her cousins or her home or the house elves or the teacup she's drinking out of right at this moment. Narcissa gave it to her on her fifteenth birthday—there's a little painting of a violet, with a bee, enchanted to buzz around it.

She has to be pragmatic about this, she tells herself again during supper. She sits beside Cissy, who delicately and precisely slices an asparagus down the center before taking a bite. Just now, Andromeda doesn't care about the money or the clothes or the food or the holidays on the Riviera that she is hours from relinquishing, but someday, she might. Someday she'll be angry and or tired or just in a lousy mood and she'll think it: she'll think _what if she'd stayed with her family. _She might even wish that she had.

And then, what? Perhaps it will only be a fleeting spate of human folly, and she won't have to say anything to Ted about it, but that's not what she wants either. That's why she's leaving now, isn't it? Because she's so goddamned tired of living inside her own head, of keeping quiet when she wants to scream, of leading these two, violently opposed lives and repressing one to give credibility to the other.

Will she be any _freer_, any _happier_ off on her own? Will she be independent, or simply _newly_ dependent? This she considers when supper ends, and her father calls for brandy. Is she leaving captivity behind, or simply polishing a new set of chains for herself? If it weren't for Ted—if she weren't so bloody in love with the prat—would she be leaving now?

The answer to that last, at least, is obvious to her.

No.

Without Ted, she would have remained silent for many more years (not forever, but for years) She would not be running away tonight. She would be planning her marriage to a man she didn't love (she's never been foolish enough to imagine that she would ever resist this, the most basic demands of her society... even _Bella_ couldn't manage it). She would be _staying_, telling herself that she must set a good example for Narcissa and never believing it for an instant. Never even believing that she believed it...

But tonight—a placid, unromantic night—would not be her last. She would have more _time_...

It hits her, as the family takes coffee after supper, that this escape is a very, very mixed blessing. She's giving up everything to... well, not to be with Ted, but that's what they'll say. That's what they'll _believe_: that she's throwing away her life and her family and all of her history for a _boy_.

She can't stand it.

Andromeda goes to bed (ostensibly) early, but Narcissa comes into her room around nine o'clock, and she's glad she hasn't already started packing, because there's no way to explain that. Cissy's only fourteen, but she's perceptive. She knows something is off with Andromeda, and somehow, it is clear that she has known it long before she entered the room. She's known all day—maybe much, much longer.

Not the details, of course. If she had guessed the details, this would all be over. Narcissa would never let her go. But she grasps that there is some battle waging beyond her comprehension, inside of Andromeda. There is a war for her soul, the end of which can only be determined by Andromeda herself.

"Mum says Bella is coming home soon," the younger girl tells her sister. "I hope it's true." They both doubt it, but never mind. "When she comes back, everything will be better."

Andromeda feels at home with these kinds of conversations. They are quite familiar. For everything her sister says, there are two responses... that of the dutiful, cold, superior Andromeda, and that of the raging, chaotic, bloody confused Andromeda.

"Dad'll be pleased," says the virtuous daughter.

_It'll only make things worse_, says Andromeda.

"Won't _you_?" inquires Cissy.

There is only the faintest trace of hesitation, and than the good girl says: "Perhaps she'll be able to talk some sense into Sirius."

_I only hope he can run fast enough_, screams Andromeda.

"Maybe," agrees Narcissa doubtfully. Fourteen, but so perceptive.

Narcissa makes to leave a few minutes later. There's no grand goodbye, which Andromeda supposes makes her heartless (Slytherins are always said to be heartless), but Narcissa would know something is very, very wrong if she slipped an uncharacteristic hug into the meeting, and Andromeda doesn't know how to introduce the idea naturally.

When Cissy's at the door, and Andromeda turns to collect some books from the foot of her bed, she _does_ manage a hopefully innocuous "_'Love you_," to which Narcissa smiles and repeats the phrase.

It's ten thirty now. She'll leave in an hour, and panic sets in. Real, honest to God panic that she can't do this... that she's mad to even try it... that she's going to utterly destroy herself in the attempt.

She doesn't want to die, and suddenly she is sure that leaving is suicide. If she stays, she won't _lose_ anything. She'll stay as she is: both Andromedas survive, coexist with difficulty, but isn't that better than completely obliterating one? Ted wouldn't want that anyway. Ted would hate to destroy any part of her. If she were to leave, the lady of the house of Black must die. If she stays, the other Andromeda, who feels and loves and _thinks _and dares to speak, must stay buried, but at least she survives. At least they both live through the night.

Just before eleven, one of the house elves knocks on her door. She says she noticed the light, and asks if Miss Andromeda would like a cup of tea before bed. Andromeda says yes, and the house elf goes off to fetch it. The witch does not move from her place by the window. She does not move for several minutes, and has not shifted when the house elf returns with the tea. She doesn't have to; the house elf places the cup (Narcissa's cup, with the violet and the bee) right on the windowsill beside Andromeda, and wordlessly departs.

She doesn't even wait for a 'thank-you.' She doesn't expect one. She doesn't need one.

Something very bad happens then. Andromeda stares at the teacup, and she hates herself.

The house elf's name is Polia. She has come and gone and left a cup of tea for Andromeda... tea she might have fetched for herself, or at least expressed some kind of mild gratitude for...

The fact is, both Andromedas _cannot_ survive.

Ted didn't invent the other Andromeda... that's what they'll say, but he didn't. He couldn't. She was always there, wrestling with herself. Ted just happened to notice her, and that was an awful thing to happen... she decided she liked being noticed. Being heard. They've been fighting ever since, the Andromedas, and now it is clear why. One Andromeda must kill the other. She can't play both—not anymore. If she leaves, the virtuous one dies. She's already known that. She's always known there's no redemption for a sinner of the House of Black. If she stays, she must be the virtuous Andromeda and _only_ the virtuous Andromeda. She must see other living beings as mere accessories to her own comfort. She must stop seeing Ted. She must give up the burning, angry, fiercely exultant girl on the inside, because those protests are tearing her apart. They will physically destroy her. They will not be contained any longer.

They need to be heard or destroyed.

So now, sitting by her window looking out at the starless sky, Andromeda Black decides what only _she_ can: which woman survives the night.


End file.
